As adsense becomes the most popular publisher program for Price per
Click advertising, flaws and disadvantages still exist. Since its
inception advertisers have chosen to advertise in search because they
felt that visitors would be less targeted. This is a genuine concern and
one that makes perfect sense. If you are visiting a website, and notice
an advert then the chances are you are not particularly concentrating
on its content.
Adsense has also become so popular that people can distinguish them from
other adverts. Therefore people may choose to ignore them without even
paying them a thought. This has been a hot topic discussed by Bloggers
and one that could contain a lot of truth. Many have blamed Google for
this, and their decision to include text that says “ads by Google”
beneath the advert.
Many publishers also fail to ever gain the revenues they anticipated
when starting the program. Those only gaining 30 – 40 visitors a day to
their website would be unlikely to earn even one dollar a day. Many
advertisers talk of rates such as 1.5%- 5% for traffic to click
conversion, whilst only gaining around $0.10 per click. The maths
doesn’t work out great, but you can hardly blame advertisers or Google
if you are not bringing enough traffic. The key is to bring targeted
traffic to your website that are likely to click on adverts, however it
is said that it may be easier on other programs which allow figures such
as 75% share of advertising revenues for publishers.
Another disadvantage in adsense is that it has almost become tacky. Its
appearance on websites that generally appear to be designed in a DIY
fashion has lead people to associate them inextricably. This can only be
tackled through adsense evolving to be more attractive to the bigger
brands, whilst those who currently use adsense are restricted.
Google Adsense also has to tackle the issue of click fraud which is
anticipated to count for over 15% of click through rate in content. This
has meant that advertiser’s who have been particularly affected, have
moved away to other programs or have restricted their advertising to
search.
This has meant that there is less competition in content and therefore
smaller revenues for publishers. Publisher’s who previously had high
yielding ads, are now having to alter their content to ensure they get
any adverts at all. This has largely been the fault of the publishers
themselves however the issue is one that; if not addressed could bring
adsense to its knees.
Google Adsense also has the disadvantage of not paying enough for their
search program. Other similar programs pay higher rates, and if
publishers decide to go elsewhere then problems will occur for
advertisers and publishers alike. Although Google fail to pay enough for
search another major problem with Adsense is that it does not have a
powerful database of graphic adverts. Many advertisers prefer showing
graphically drive advertisements, however this has yet to materialise.
As several other programs exist for PPC graphic distribution problems
could occur.
Whilst this may not be a problem for all publishers, many complain that
the adverts within their site do not change, so their repeat visitors
fail to see fresh adverts so therefore fail to visit them. This is a
problem which could be addressed through making adverts rotate. However
if adverts rotate then how will that be linked with advertisers paying a
rate per click? These are all problems which Google has to address to
ensure that Adsense remains the market leader.
Adwords on the other hand also has major advantages, and remains the
best in the market. It’s CPC rates can be chosen by the advertisers so
that even when they feel that they are not getting the results they
expect they can lower their prices whilst still using the service.
Whilst many issues remain with adsense the program still remains the
most popular amongst publishers, whilst Google Adwords remains the most
popular amongst advertisers; with a database of over 140,000 Adwords
will remain on top for the time to come.